NEET SS 2021: Centre defends change in exam pattern in SC, postpones test date to January 2022

The Union government told the Supreme Court in an affidavit that it has decided to postpone the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test Super Specialty (NEET SS) exam 2021 to January next year. The Centre also defended its decision to make changes in the exam pattern before the apex court. According to NDTV, the affidavit said that the decision to postpone the NEET SS 2021 exam was taken to ensure that students will get enough time to prepare for the exam under the new pattern. The NEET SS 2021 exam will be held on 10-11 January next year. The government also defended its decision to alter the paper pattern of the NEET SS 2021 exam, saying that the changes were made to ensure that seats do not go unfulfilled, adding that “the examination pattern has been modified, whereby it is reasonably expected that more number of these seats will get filled up and the wastage would be minimized.” The Centre had issued a notification detailing changes in the NEET SS exam pattern on 31 August. The plea against the same was filed by 41 postgraduate doctors who said that the decision was made to favour candidates pursuing general medicine. The new paper pattern saw 100 percent of questions being from the feeder or broad super specialty courses, instead of the earlier pattern of  60 percent questions from the super specialty stream of applicants and 40 percent from feeder courses. In accordance with the plea, the Supreme Court had pulled up the Centre, along with the National Board of Examinations (NBE) and the National Medical Commission (NMC) last week, for making last-minute changes to the exam pattern, asking them “not to treat doctors like footballs”. The apex court also asked them to consider holding the NEET SS 2021 exam according to the old pattern. The NEET SS exam is held for admissions to more than 4,200 seats in courses such as Master of Surgery (MCh), Doctorate of Medicine (DM), and Doctorate of National Board (DrNB). The NBE has received 11,911 applicants for NEET SS 2021 exam and expects the number of applications to rise to about 18,000. The registrations for the NEET SS 2021 exam will take place from 22 September to 12 October.